Howie Rose to retire as Mets radio voice after season
Mets announcer Howie Rose. Credit: Getty Images/Chris Chambers
PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla. — A 7-year-old Howie Rose first walked into Yankee Stadium with his dad in 1961, a year before the Mets debuted, and a baseball life followed.
He recalled the days as a young Mets fan in the upper deck at Shea Stadium, knowing that he would never get down to the field as a player but perhaps could make it to the broadcast booth.
For the last 40 years, Rose’s voice and Mets baseball have been one and the same. Rose, now 72, started hosting Mets pregame and postgame shows in 1987 and has been in the team’s radio booth since 2004.
On Thursday, he announced that the 2026 season will be his last.
“I just felt it was time, and a lot of it has to do with things other than broadcasting,” he told reporters on a Zoom call.
Rose, who sold his New York residence last year and now lives in Florida, said he is “sick and tired” of coming home after 11 p.m. and hearing his wife, Barbara, say she did “nothing much” that night or had a bowl of cereal for dinner.
“I can’t do that to her anymore,” Rose said. “My wife and daughters, Alyssa and Chelsea, have sacrificed so much for so long. I’m 72 now, so effectively I’ll be retiring at 73. And to me, that’s just enough.
A message from @HowieRose: pic.twitter.com/PwC89TDduy
— New York Mets (@Mets) March 19, 2026
“If I’ve lost a tick or two off my fastball, I’ve learned to sort of compensate for that. But I don’t want to hang around too long to where things become noticeable that they’re not what they were. I don’t want to be one of those guys where people say, ‘What’s he still doing on the air? Doesn’t he have any other interests?’
“I’ve got some other interests, and I’ll pursue them at the end of this season.”
He will reduce his workload from 100 Mets games to 84: the 81 home games at Citi Field and three at Yankee Stadium. He will be in the booth for every potential postseason game — home or away.
For the first time this year, the Mets’ WHSQ 880 AM radio broadcast — featuring Rose, Keith Raad and Pat McCarthy — will be available in real time with virtually no delay to fans attending games at Citi Field through the MLB Ballpark App.
Rose missed parts of the 2021 season and began to limit his travel in 2022 after being diagnosed and treated for bladder cancer. He currently is in good health and wants to ensure he enjoys retirement.
He will continue to serve as the on-field emcee for Opening Day, number retirements and inductions to the Mets Hall of Fame, which he was inducted into in 2023.
“For nearly four decades, Howie Rose’s voice has been synonymous with New York Mets baseball,” team owners Steve and Alex Cohen said in a statement. “His passion for the Mets has carried across the airwaves and into the homes and hearts of fans everywhere, bringing the franchise’s most memorable moments to life.”
With the news came hundreds of messages, and Rose said he finally knows “what the cool kids mean when they say their phone’s blowing up.” He heard from Carlos Mendoza, Dave Sims, Suzyn Waldman, Michael Kay and many others.
Waldman told Newsday she met Rose in 1987. He would practice play-by-play in a small room in the old studio of WFAN, where he was one of the station’s original talk show hosts.
“Howie Rose worked so hard to be a great play-by-play announcer,” she said. “I don’t think people understand. He’d listen to himself and he’d critique himself, and I’d see it. He’d be in this little room.
“As good as it got . . . I just love Howie Rose.”
Rose also called Rangers games from 1989-95 and Islanders games in 1995-2016. His impact there certainly was felt.
“Just an absolute staple to our organization and many years of great calls,” Islanders captain Anders Lee, who debuted in 2013, told Newsday. “He flew with us in my early years. I was young, I was a rookie. He was always kind to me and great to me. I haven’t seen him in a little bit, so I just wish him the best. I always had pleasant encounters with him.”
Rose’s favorite calls? He mentioned the obvious ones: Stephane Matteau’s double-overtime goal in Game 7 of the 1994 Eastern Conference finals, Johan Santana’s no-hitter in 2012, the NL pennant-clincher in Chicago in 2015 and Pete Alonso’s go-ahead homer in Milwaukee in the 2024 Wild Card Series.
But he said his “Vin Scully moment” was on Francisco Lindor’s go-ahead grand slam in Game 4 of the NLDS, the series-clinching win. That call: “They were famished for the big hit all night, and Francisco Lindor just provided a feast!”
Rose mentioned Lindsey Nelson, Bob Murphy and Ralph Kiner as mentors, calling them “uncles,” but said no one had a greater influence than his dad, who introduced him to baseball and passed away from Alzheimer’s in 1978. Rose’s father never got to see his career blossomand Rose said “it kills me.”
“The bond that you have with your dad when you learn and follow baseball together was so deep with me,” he said. “For him not to have shared any of it with me is something I’ll never get over. I know he’s proud.”
Notes & quotes: The Mets optioned Ronny Mauricio and Joey Gerber to Triple-A Syracuse. Mike Baumann and Brandon Waddell were reassigned to minor-league camp.
Newsday’s Anthony Rieber and Andrew Gross contributed to this story.
Ben Dickson is Newsday Sports' general assignment reporter. He joined Newsday’s high school sports staff in 2023 after graduating from Maryland, where he covered several of the Terrapins' teams.
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